Internet Voting – President of the Internet 2015-2016

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RM Google Panda Algorithm

Google controls an enormously complicated search engine that works off of complex mathematical algorithms. Google is constantly modifying and adjusting their algorithms to make certain search-engine users are getting the most pertinent and up-to-date search data possible. Google’s Panda algorithm was originally launched in February 2011, with Google continually rolling out new updates to prevent low-quality websites from appearing high in the search rankings.

Google typically modifies their search-engine algorithms well over 500 times a year, with major and minor adjustments to keep ahead of unscrupulous website developers that are trying to game the system. Some of the major updates Google puts out are what are sometimes referred to as sub-algorithms, like Panda.

Some Search-Engine Basics

When a search-engine user types a term into the search box the algorithm calculates the mathematical value of each word in the term and then scours millions of web pages across the internet and matches the value of the search term with the value of the webpages and ranks those pages according to how closely the values match. Google put all the pages it searches in an index, like a filing system, for future reference when a search is performed.

The problem Google faced was web developers just used the terms, known as “keywords,” without providing any valuable, or even relevant, content on their website just to attract users to their websites. Before Google launched Panda it was not uncommon for a user to type “apple pie recipe” in the search box and come up with pages of result that had the word “apple” somewhere on the website, irrelevant of having a recipe for pie.

Panda

Google Panda was a sweeping change Google made in response to websites that were raking high in the search result, often at the top of the first page, but were just a conglomeration of advertisements with very little actually value related to the search terms. As an example, some sites would provide a very generic and superficial 300-word article related to the search term, but then load up the page with advertisements geared to the search terms.

However, the problem still remains that many web developers are just as smart as the Google employees who write the algorithms. So Google will launch an update, the web programmers will figure out a way around it, Google writes a new algorithm and the sequences starts again.

Each time Google puts out an update the new algorithm becomes more sophisticated to take the entire content of the website into account, matching the context of the website to the context of the search term. The latest Panda update targets and removes irrelevant and redundant content, often called spam, from Google’s index, so the low-quality pages will no longer be shown in the search results. The main thing to take away from understanding how Panda works is that low-quality and unoriginal content will be downgrade by Google.

Other algorithms Google uses to target low-quality websites are:

• Google Penguin: Targets “over optimization” such as when a website overuses keywords and links to other websites just to attract traffic.
• Google Hummingbird: Calculates the search-user’s “intent” when using long key phrases.
• Google Pigeon: Gives preference to business in the user’s local area.